Laugh-out-loud funny passage from Mark Twain’s A Tramp Abroad:

RECIPE FOR GERMAN COFFEE

Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil; rub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former into the water. Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity of the flavor and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished to a proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of a once cow from the plow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when you shall have acquired a teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a German superstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a bucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a cold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet rag around your head to guard against over-excitement.

Now that text advertisements are the Next Big Thing on the web, I was brought up short wondering if I was seeing a brilliant new campaign when I ran across the following on the Washington Post site this morning; note the bit highlighted in yellow.

In case that’s too small to read, that says, “Error in Ad Code Arguments. Found Comment Tags. Illegal Format.”

Just someone’s poor programming sticking out of their waistband.

As part of the run-up to the new PBS documentary series on Mark Twain, National Public Radio engaged in a little public broadcasting backscratching by interviewing Ken Burns on Morning Edition.

Bob Edwards mentioned that NPR was linking to the only known video of Mark Twain on their website. Sounded interesting, so I headed that way and landed on a Mark Twain fan site run by the Hannibal Courier-Post. (Who, I’m sure, must be thrilled that their name is now synonymous with serial killers.)

The video, of course, is silent, so you can thrill to the sight of Mr. Clemens wandering around his building and drinking tea with a few friends.

The cameraman, one Thomas Edison.

Now, I’m not one to tell Tom Edison he had the wrong idea, but the hell with a silent tea-drinking Twain. The two men were in the same room together! Tom, please, you should have hauled along your best audio recording spools and recorded a few hours of you and Sam, just shooting the breeze. That would have been priceless.